Katamari Damacy creator wants industry to “make more fun and weird games”, as he admits his latest To a T “didn’t sell well”

Katamari Damasi Creator Keita Takahashi said his latest game To a T “didn't sell well” and was “not a good fit”, expressing difficulty releasing more experimental games.

Takahashi is best known for the surreal Katamari Damacy series, in which players roll a ball around the environment to collect increasingly larger objects. Takahashi left Namco in 2010 and has since lived in Vancouver and San Francisco, working on other projects.

However, speaking with Gaming radarTakahashi has stated that he does not own the Katamari Damacy intellectual property (although Namco continues the series). Moreover, he now had to return to Japan due to the lack of success of To a T.

“I don't think anyone is trying to create a niche game,” Takahashi said of his work. “The name 'niche game' is just an outcome. I know that my games are far from mainstream.

“I recently returned to Japan, and one of the reasons I had to do it was because To a T wasn't selling very well. It's a risk to be independent and I'm willing to take it, but I don't think it's a question of niche or tradition, it's a question of whether people like it or not.”

Takahashi believes that “there is still room for new ideas” but “unfortunately, To a T just didn't fit.”

Published by Annapurna and developed by his own studio Uvula, To a T is about a young child who gets stuck in the T position. He is full of joy and humor, but this also a game about living with a disability.

Takahashi told Games Radar that he was inspired by the “dreary mood/atmosphere/vibe of where we live” and therefore wanted to “do something very positive and silly.”

“I'm not sure, but it's definitely getting harder for me,” he said when asked about the difficulties of releasing experimental games. “If anyone wants to invest in a tongue, let me know. Let's make more fun and weird games!”

“What ultimately worked for me in To a T, in this frustrating, confusing, clumsy and brilliant game – and I see it in glimpses and small flashes of my own memories – is the lingering sense of how dark and strange life is when you are young, how limitless and poorly controlled it seems,” Christian Donlan wrote for Eurogamer on understanding the essence of To a T.